The Raid: Redemption

Let's just say this right up front. The Raid is hands down one of the most violent movies I think I have seen. There are machetes. There are machine guns. There is hand to hand combat. Non stop from almost the first five minutes, it's blood, explosions, and guts until the last few minutes of the film. I think the credits may have run longer than violence-free minutes in this movie. All that being said, I loved every blood-soaked second of it.

The plot of The Raid is pretty straight forward. In Jakarta, a run down apartment building is held in tight control by a ruthless drug lord. The police, other gangsters, no one enters willingly. Until an elite SWAT team enters under the cover of darkness to take out the drug lord and bring him to justice. Unfortunately, they have to make it up several floors of gangsters under his control, all very willing to kill, maim, and torture to protect their leader. You follow the exploits of our hero, whose wife is at home pregnant with their first son, as he fights his way to the top of the building, following an agenda of his own.

If this sounds familiar, you would be right. From the sound of it, DREDD borrowed heavily from this same idea. As you would expect, The Raid was more raw, less stylized. More martial arts and bright red blood squibs. DREDD used the same idea - slum apartment building held in sway by a ruthless drug lord, fighting up flights of stairs to the big boss. Really though, they are two very different movies, enjoyable in their own right.

The Raid: Redemption is a movie to watch if you love gritty, dirty, bloody fight movies. Seriously, so in to it expecting a whole lot of violence and not a whole lot of plot and you will be very happy.

Rating: 4 Purrrs for a blood-soaked jubilee of fun times